35 Weeks, 17 Months, and Some Good Old-Fashioned Summertime Fun

Yesterday marked 35 weeks in my pregnancy. Baby Girl is growing and all is going quite well. She is still moving around like crazy and a few times I've thought she might have turned, but I'm pretty sure she's still breech now. I'll find out for sure on Wednesday. Only five or so weeks to go!

Tomorrow, Miss is 17 months old. She has had a major increase in language in the past few weeks, which has been so fun. We have been at my in-laws' farm for the past week, and some of the new words she has started saying since we've been here include, "pond," "elk," "water," "bug,"and "deer." If you are familiar with my in-laws' farm, these words make perfect sense. If you're not, I'll just say there are a lot of animals mounted in the house (elk, deer, mountain lion, turkey, goose, duck, antelope, and a huge salmon, to name some of them), the property is on a lake and there are lots of ponds around. She also has recently started saying "Wow!" which she kind of says with a similar inflection to Joey on the old show "Blossom" (I think that's the right character/show), and she is putting a few words together on occasion. This age is so fun and I'm enjoying every minute with her.

We've been having a great time this summer, just doing fun summertime stuff. Here's a sample of some of the good times we've had in the past week.

Fun in the pool.

Trying to get Daddy to put on the swimmies first.

One for Daddy, one for Miss.

Playing on the riding toys.

Bubbles!

Swimming at the beach.

She loves the sand.

Speaking of old-fashioned fun, today I was out hanging Miss's diapers on the clothesline, which always feels kind of like an old-fashioned thing to do, when I looked over and saw my husband raking hay in the tractor. I had a moment of feeling all "Laura Ingalls Wilder" or something. Except I guess maybe they didn't have tractors in "Little House on the Prairie," did they? Whatever. It was a cool moment. And I got this cool photo.

The girl can dance

I love wedding receptions. There is no better place to let loose and dance yourself silly. Where else do you get to hear such a variety of songs, all just perfect for dancing? You can do the "Twist," throw your head back and sing loudly to "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights," shake your booty and rap all the words to "Ice Ice Baby," slow dance to any number of great love songs, seemingly always played two at a time, and do all sorts of line dances. Songs like "Love Shack," "Groove is in the Heart," "Takin' Care of Business," "Shout!" and so many others just beg to be danced to. It helps that at all of the weddings in my husband's family, he and/or his brother and/or cousin(s) play DJ or jam out as the band (they were the band at our wedding) and always have an uncanny sense of how to keep a party rocking.

We went to a wedding this weekend for one of my hubby's cousins, and this one did not disappoint. In fact, it was especially fun because not only did I get to dance and enjoy the music, but I got to watch Miss have her first taste of the wedding reception dance floor. It took her a little while to warm up, but once she did it was just fantastic to watch her.

At first she didn't want to get down on the floor. She was very puzzled by all the dancing people around her and just wanted to observe what was going on. She danced with Momma.

She danced with Daddy.

Then she got down on the floor, but was still a bit reserved. She just hung around close to my legs and continued to watch for a bit.

She watched the big boys getting down.

We did the "Hokey Pokey."

And finally she started warming up.

Started to feel the groove.

And finally, pure dancing joy.
She had so much fun. She loved the music. She loved watching the dancing. She loved doing the dancing. And by the end of the night she was so tired she was just running all over the dance floor, I think to keep herself from falling down and passing out in exhaustion. It was a blast. It is so amazing to me every day to watch her do and experience new things. And P.S., my girl's got some killer moves!

Turn, Turn, Turn

I had a regular prenatal appointment yesterday. Baby Girl is breech. This is not good news. As I type this I am on knees and elbows, because I've heard that spending time in this position can help a breech baby to flip. I don't know if that's true, but it can't hurt, right? Well, except that it does kind of. It's really not the most comfortable position, and I may end up with permanent carpet indentations on my knees and elbows. If she turns it's all worth it though.

Funny thing? Having Baby Girl be breech has been a big fear for me during this pregnancy. I know, this is not ha-ha funny, but funny in an ironic, crappy kind of way. See, I had to have a c-section with Miss. It was not planned that way. My big fabulous plan was to have an all natural, medication-free birth. She was head-down, ready to go. I went into labor on my own. Things were progressing. But then her heart rate went way up, she was showing late decelerations, and she passed meconium. None of which are very good signs, so my doc recommended a c-section and my husband and I agreed. She was born perfect and healthy, so I have much to be thankful for. But I can still say that c-sections really suck. I did not want to have pain medication, yet there I was, completely numb, probably from about my armpits down. I really wanted to hold my daughter immediately after her birth, but my arms were strapped down, I was shaking uncontrollably, and the anesthesiologist was stressing and hovering around my head because my blood pressure got really low. It was almost two hours after she was born I think before I finally got to hold her. And that's all without even mentioning the crappy recovery from surgery.

Don't get me wrong. I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining. I have a beautiful, healthy, perfect daughter, and I could not justify risking that in order to have the birth experience that I had "planned" for. That said, I really, really do not want another c-section. I have been talking with my doctor about having a VBAC with any pregnancies after Miss pretty much since the minute she told me I should have a section. Seriously, in the same breath that she was recommending a section for Miss's delivery, she was telling me that I would be a good candidate for VBAC with future pregnancies. She knew how much I didn't want a c-section. We also discussed this at my 6 week post-partum checkup and started talking about it from appointment #1 with this pregnancy. My doctor has been very supportive of this option. Of course, it's only an option if certain criteria are met. 1) I either have to go into labor on my own before 41 weeks (the max she will allow me to remain pregnant) or 2)be dilated enough that she can break my water to induce labor, since it's not a good idea to use medications to induce labor for a VBAC (using small amounts of pitocin to augment labor is okay, I guess, but the amount needed to induce labor is not okay). 3) I can't have pre-eclampsia. And, oh yeah, 4) the baby has to be head-down!!!!

So, here I am on knees and elbows, sending major head-down vibes to this little girl. I know there is still time for her to flip, and I'm hopeful. I'm only about 34 weeks now. It can happen. I will have another ultrasound at my next appointment at 36 weeks. If Baby Girl is still breech I will discuss the possibility of doing an external version with my doc (having her manually turn the baby by pressing on my belly). I didn't see my doc at yesterday's appointment so I'm not sure how she will feel about doing that. There are risks, of course, so I'm not sure either. For right now I'm willing this baby to get herself facing the right direction. I'd appreciate any good baby-flipping vibes you all would be willing to send my way too, or any other suggestions on how to get her to flip.

And just in case this post has seemed like a big downer (not intentional, but probably the case), I'll leave you with something fun from today. First of all, Miss is really enjoying this whole "Mommy-on-her-knees-and-elbows" thing, as it allows her to use me as a jungle gym. Second, check out how grown up she looks eating a peach all by herself. Simple pleasures :)

Happy 4th of July!

This is a day late, but we were having so much fun this weekend I didn't get to post it yesterday.

We started off the 4th of July festivities by checking out the local festival called "Sawdust Days" which is held at a local park and runs through the holiday weekend with fireworks on Saturday and a veteran's parade on Sunday. I was bummed that we missed it last year, and determined that we would check it out this year. So as soon as my hubby got home from work on Thursday I rushed him to change clothes and off we went, planning to indulge in some yummy fair food for dinner.

Unfortunately, the Sawdust Days seem to have been misnamed. The festival should have been called the "Freaks and Stinky People Fair." I promise, I am not a snob. Go to any state fair or even smaller scale festival, and much of the fun is the confluence of people from all walks of life. I love people watching. But this small local event was truly the most concentrated gathering of scary, strange, and heavily body-odored people I have ever seen. And I worked in prisons and prison psychiatric hospitals for many years! Needless to say, we went, we saw, we hightailed it out of there and ate dinner at a downtown restaurant. We did however get a good laugh from the experience.

The rest of the weekend was truly a fun time. Friday morning Miss and I took the Expedition to have one of the headlights fixed and did a little shopping at Big Lots while waiting for the work to be done. I found a great "painting" for my bedroom for only $10. I just love a bargain. Then we went to a quilt shop down the road where I picked up some fabric to make curtains and the bedskirt for Baby Girl's room. As we walked around the store Miss kept pointing at all the fabrics and quilts hanging up and saying her version of "pretty," which sounds sort of like "pi-ee" with a very awed vocal inflection. It was so cute.

Saturday morning we went to the farmer's market. We found some great local produce as well as some locally made salsa and salad dressing/marinade. I just love the farmer's market. But the best part of the weekend was that Miss and I spent the majority of it (Friday, Saturday and Sunday afternoons) playing at the pool. We have met some new friends there, a mom and her little girl who is just about 2 months older than Miss. It is so fun to watch Miss and her little friend play together. They do a lot of staring at each other and working on sharing. Yesterday it was super cute to watch them take turns stomping and splashing in a puddle by the pool. I'm happy to have met a new mom-friend too, and we had a fantastic time at the pool, even though my hubby was working all weekend and couldn't come with us.

Last night we went to a neighborhood barbecue and met some new people. Miss was, of course, the star of the party. How could she not be looking all festive and adorable?

I love the 4th of July. We didn't get to attend any fireworks shows, because Miss goes to bed long before it is dark enough here for that, but we heard plenty and I'm looking forward to years in the future when we can take Miss to see some great fireworks shows on this patriotic holiday.

Though today was the observed holiday for a lot of people, my hubby still had to work and the weather took a turn for the worse here. It was overcast and looked like the sky might open up at any moment and pour down rain. It never actually did, but we skipped the pool anyway. We went for low-key today. Miss and I made basil ice cubes, to preserve some of the fresh basil we have for this winter. And she spent quite a bit of time having a blast playing with, eh, dog toys.

Yes, I am a little bit ashamed to admit to the sorry state of the dog toys in our home. What you see in the photo above was once a stuffed tomato with a squeaker inside. One of my dogs has no interest in toys, and the other just tears a toy apart so that the stuffing is all over the house and the squeaker is rendered mute within moments of giving it to him. That doesn't mean I don't give him toys from time to time anyway, it just means they don't last in any form that would be recognizable as a toy for very long. Consequently, we have many scraps of stiff-from-dog-slobber plush in a rainbow of colors (previously a frog, a Santa, a white dog, etc.). Miss seemed a little grossed out by a few of the pieces too, picking them up gingerly with thumb and forefinger and holding them out to the dog in an attempt to play. But she was also fascinated by them for long enough that I got to sit and enjoy rocking in a chair and watching her dump out the whole dog toy basket and peruse the bits.

This green one seemed to be her favorite. It was once a tadpole-like toy with a tennis ball in one end, I think. Now it's just the green tail part, and she plays with the ball separately.

She thought it would be fashionable as a scarf.

But I think maybe it grossed her out.
To top off the weekend I made a delicious stir fry for dinner with tons of fresh veggies from our CSA box and now my hard-working hubby is out enjoying an evening round of golf. Here's hoping everyone else has had as much fun as we have this holiday weekend.

A Small Story about a Big Bag

Okay, maybe it's not really a small story, but here it is anyway:

When I was pregnant with Miss, the first baby-related item I bought was a custom diaper bag from 1154 Lill. I love 1154 Lill, because you can select from many different styles of bags and then pick the fabric you want for the bag, either in one of their stores or right on their website. I first bought a Lill bag in Kansas City in one of their stores (which has since closed I think, though they still have stores in Chicago and I believe Boston). The first bag I bought was a laptop bag, and I still use it when I work. It's a gorgeous bag, and I love it. So, when the time came to get a diaper bag, naturally I wanted to design my own Lill bag. Here is the bag I made online when pregnant with Miss:

This has been a great bag and I have received tons of compliments on it. It is sturdy and has held up very well to daily use and often over-stuffing with the many things I need to tote around with Miss. However, it has some things about it that annoy me, like this:

And also the fact that the strap is just a bit too long and is not adjustable other than to make it really short. So when I'm carrying Miss and my bag, the bag hangs just a bit too low for me to get into it with one hand while holding her with the other. I always end up stopping, bending my leg and lifting my foot to push the bag up enough that I can reach my keys or whatever else I need to get out of the bag. Plus, if you've ever packed a diaper bag with cloth diapers, you know how much room they take up. When I bought this bag, I did not necessarily plan to cloth diaper Miss and didn't know enough about using cloth for that to have that be something that would go into my selection of diaper bag. This bag has usually been sufficient for handling cloth diapers for one baby, but when I think about adding all the stuff that I need for two babies in cloth diapers, one a newborn and one a toddler. . . well, I knew this bag would just not cut it.

Fortunately, I had heard of a mom who makes fabulous bags and sells them in an Etsy shop, Brooke Van Gory Designs (Can you tell I'm seriously Etsy addicted? I just love buying things made by other moms). I told my hubby that I wanted a gift certificate for her Up-sized Expedient Weekender/Diaper bag for my birthday. This is a very large diaper bag with lots of pockets and a matching wetbag that can hook on to the outside of the bag instead of taking up room on the inside for dirty diapers (what a great idea!!). Being the fabulous husband he is, he got it for me. I was so excited I contacted Brooke right away and she helped me pick the fabric for my bag. A great thing about her bags is that you can pick from fabrics she has shown on her website, or you can pick almost anything else that you can find, provided it would work for the construction of the bag (when designing a Lill bag, you have to choose from the fabrics they have in their store). Brooke and I looked through lots of different fabrics (Michael Miller, Amy Butler, etc.) to select what I wanted for my bag.

Now here comes the part where the small story isn't so small. Brooke got the bag made and shipped it off to me. Unfortunately, my hubby almost never uses Paypal (which is how he paid for the bag, as is typical for most Etsy shops) and didn't even realize that the address on his account was our old address in North Carolina, where we haven't lived in over two years! Well, it didn't occur to either of us that Brooke would print the shipping label from Paypal (though this is a pretty standard practice among sellers who use Paypal), but that's what happened and the bag got sent to the old homestead in NC. It took about a week before Brooke and I realized what had happened, at which point I proceeded to call the post office and start an investigation to find the bag. Unfortunately the PO dropped the ball and the "investigation" was not pursued, so another week went by before I contacted them again and they tried to speak with the mail carrier to find out what he could remember about the delivery. In the meantime, I sent a letter through snail mail (I didn't have a phone number or email, but of course had the address. . .) to the people who bought the house from us asking them to please be on the lookout for the bag and mark it "return to sender" and put it back in the mail at their earliest convenience. The woman who bought the house from us called me and told me they had just sold the house themselves and would pass along the request to the new owners at their closing later that day. I told her that the bag had already been delivered two weeks before. Unfortunately she and her husband had not been living in the house for over a month, so the bag was delivered and sat at my old, vacant, house for up to two weeks. My phone number was passed along to the new owners. I never heard anything from them, though I didn't expect to, figuring the bag was long gone at that point.

I was sad. I really wanted that bag.

Then, Brooke swooped in and saved the day. She just decided to remake the bag for me, and so she did. Talk about customer service. I have to give her major props for doing that, and for how completely awesome the bag turned out. After all that build up, here it is:

I knew it would be bigger than my old bag, but couldn't believe how much bigger it turned out to be!!

Both bags have plenty of outer storage space, plus lots of pockets inside. My old bag had four interior pockets, which was great, except that I ended up without a good place to store my "mommy stuff" (lip balm, Tums, etc.), so I just threw it in the same pocket with the snacks/sippy cup, etc. Here's a photo of the old bag, containing toys, a changing pad, a bonnet, one cloth diaper, some food, diaper cleanup stuff, and Miss's Tiny Diner placemat (which I LOVE; I am a serious baby gear head):

Here's the new bag containing the same stuff. There is so much more room in there!! And even better, there's a whole extra pocket (5 total on the inside of this bag) where I can put my "mommy stuff" and zip it away.
The straps are just the right length to be able to reach into the bag while it's on my shoulder. The bag is actually almost too big. Almost. But not really. I have been known to cram a lot of stuff into a bag when toting one child, and this bag will definitely be none too big when I have stuff for two. And the quality of the workmanship it top notch. Plus, the Brooke bag is significantly less expensive!

The only thing I regret a little about this bag is that it is sooo similar in its color scheme to my old bag. Obviously that's because I love the colors in both of them. And I do absolutely love the new bag, I just have a very small part of me that wishes I had branched out to something a little different. But realistically, that would only be useful if I were planning to switch between bags to match what I was wearing or something, and I know I will probably never switch back to the old bag again, so it's probably best that I got the new bag in the color scheme that I love the most rather than going for something different just because. So yeah, scratch that. I'm so glad I got what I got.

I have to say big "Thanks!!" to my hubby and to Brooke for this fantastic new bag!! I'm so excited to start carrying little newborn-sized cloth diapers in there in a few months. And I have to say, if you're in the market for a bag, check out Brooke's Etsy shop. She has smaller bags too if you're not in the market for a super duper diaper bag/weekend travel bag, she does great work at great prices, and she's fantastic to work with. Five stars for sure!